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Disclaimer: This is not a guide to say which armies are 'better' than other armies. Except in hyperbole. The 'stars' notation is for what Newbies should play. By no means does this mean that you shouldn't play Chaos Daemons. It means that if you're a new player and don't fully understand the rules to the game, it might be hard to make Daemons work.

Any unit that gets specifically mentioned is a stand-out unit, or will represent a 'must-have' unit that the army has.

General Advice for all armies;

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Where possible, you should always talk to a GW Staff Member. No, you don't have to actually listen to or do anything they say. But, you should at least talk to them so they can point you in at least a general direction. Don't buy anything on your first trip into the store. GW Staff are very persuasive, and you can - or will - often end up buying something you don't even want.

If and when you do finally decide on an army, play a few games in an actual GW Store using the Store's models. Otherwise, where possible, use proxy models. This will give you a basic understanding of most of the rules and the turn sequence and a general idea of how your army-of-choice plays. Or, at least give you an idea that an army or unit that you thought was cool, really isn't. Or maybe that particular army just isn't for you. And that unit that 'looks cool' doesn't fit your play style.

Read a Codex. Whatever gets said on the internet, means absolutely nothing if you don't have a Codex to understand what's being said. This ties into the above in that it's kind of important that you have played a few games and know the rules.

GW doesn't mention it all that much, but; You don't have to use your army's Codex for your army. For example; It's perfectly reasonable to, say, use the Chaos Space Marine Codex to represent a 1st Company of Loyalist Marines. You can, in fact, use Imperial Guard models to represent Tau, or Eldar. Just so long as your models look suitably awesome and your models conform to the rules of a different list (the WYSIWYG rule). If you can also give a background justification - or 'fluffy' reason - for why your Imperial Guard are wielding Shuriken or Pulse Rifles; Even better!

In regards to the above; 'Counts as' models can generally be shown to be a fluffy reason for why you have what you have. So, maybe your Imperial Guard regiment has a lot of Ogryns. You can use an Ogryn-holding-a-Lascannon as your 'Heavy Weapon Team'. As long as it's WYSIWYG, and at least makes a passing attempt at conforming to the rules (such as base size/shape), nobody cares. However, GW really doesn't like it when you come into their store and start using a different company's miniatures to play a GW game. However, making a scratch-build from Green Stuff and Plasticard is totally okay. Just so long as you aren't giving their competitors money, eh?

With that said; Painting, Green Stuff, Plasticard and Conversions in general, the only way to get better at it, is to practice. Start easy, start small. Start with adding cloaks to troops. Large, rectangular pieces of Green Stuff. Easy. Maybe you'll be confident to add textures. Ability comes with practice. And, there are literally dozens of tutorials to be found on YouTube. And hundreds of tutorials just about everywhere else.

Less is more. Don't try to equip your unit to do everything. Assign your units to fulfill a role, and let them do it. Don't waste points on things you aren't going to use.

Bodies are far more important than Wargear. Do not spend 100 extra points on Wargear, if you could otherwise spend 100 points on buying a whole unit. Wargear is not a substitute for models. Well, it is. But, it's a poor substitute.

Troops. Win. Games. Do not, under any circumstances, skimp out on your Troops selection. More often than not they are the cheapest unit in the Codex, and, Troops are the only units who can capture an objective. Any unit can contest an objective, but, only Troops can claim objectives. All contesting objectives will do is get you is a Draw.

Assault on Black Reach. Bad for Space Marine players. Good for Ork Players.

Guide to Armies

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Space Marines (Codex Marines, SMs):

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Pros: Space Marines are the eponymous 40K army. They are the army by which all other armies are judged. Just about all their units can be outfitted in many different ways to fulfill many different roles (but, in regards to General Advice, they should only try to do one thing at a time). With few exceptions, the entire army selection is plastic for easy conversions and assembly (and, most of the metal models you don't even need). As plastics, the army is also relatively cheap to buy.
GW Staff are extremely knowledgeable on all things Space Marine.
Troops unit choice with the ability to Infiltrate and have Sniper Rifles.
Power Armour and Bolters.

Cons: Honestly, none. Save for the common misinformation that GW Staff will tell you to get you to buy certain units and sets (like Assault on Black Reach). But, this is by no means bad. As a Space Marine is a Space Marine. And pretty much all the units in the Codex can be useful one way or another.
One such example is that there is a growing proportion of Space Marine players who feel - despite the fluff and the statline - that Scout Squads are superior to Tactical Squads (the reason why is outside the scope of this guide).
The only truly bad thing about Space Marines, is that everybody has them. GW sells them at every opportunity. All starter sets ever produced by GW has contained Space Marines as one of the 'learner' armies. By extension, a lot of people turn to Space Marines because that's what they learned the game with, but, what they don't realise, is that the Assault on Black Reach starter kit is weak.

Recommendation for Newbs; *****. But the Assault on Black Reach kit isn't a good start to a Space Marine army. GW likes misinformation.
* or ** depending on whether or not you care about being 'just like everyone else'.What's so bad about AoBR?

Codex Space Marines theoretically allows you to build 7 different 'themes' of Space Marines (even though it's 6) based around what colours and which Special Characters you like. However, any special character can be used in any Chapter, painted any colour that you choose. So, really, what Chapter you choose is kind of irrelevant since you can use other Chapters' special characters anyway.

The common belief is that 'Space Marines is Space Marines'. They all have Power Armour and Bolters. All of the above applies to the below;Dark Angels: Outdated Codex. A few minor differences. Many people are best off going with Codex Marines rather than playing by Dark Angels rules. The only reason to play Dark Angels is for Ravenwing. And, even then, sometimes you might be better off with Codex Marines with a 'Captain on Bike'. *Black Templars: Outdated Codex. Slightly more focused on close combat. With some unique rules. **Space Wolves: Slightly focused on close combat. With some unique rules and units. ***Blood Angels: Focused on close combat so much that it may lead to a detriment to their shooting capabilities. Some unique rules. Expensive (in points) squads and Assault Squads as troops. ** or ***

If you don't understand just what it is that makes these Chapters unique as opposed Codex Marines (read their respective Codecies), or you don't like or don't plan on using what makes them unique; You're better off sticking to Codex Marines. You can still paint your Space Marines as Blood Angels and use Codex Marines.

Chaos Space Marines (CSMs):

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Like Space Marines, but Evil. So, just about everything that applies to Space Marines applies to Chaos Space Marines.Pros: Chaos Space Marines are slightly more focused on close combat than their Imperial counterparts - but, by no means to they have to be. CSMs are not necessarily 'better' than regular SMs. Just...Different. Each faction has different toys at their disposal.
There are a variety of different ways you can outfit your squads, and it's kind of difficult to find any two CSM armies the same.
Power Armour and Bolters.
Converting your 'Starter Box' Space Marine army to Chaos Marines is fairly easy. Just add spikes and arrows and mutations.

Cons: There are options in the Codex. Too many options some say. It's very easy to get confused on what or what not to get for your squads and characters. And it's even easier to go overboard on wargear and skills and the like (remember; Wargear != Bodies).
CSMs are also a fairly commonly seen army as they cater to the people who want to play Space Marines, but, think that 'Evil is Cool'. Some do consider who they get associated with as a bad thing.

Recommendation for Newbies: ****
** or *** if trying for a Cult army.

Taking, or want suggestions. Since Codex CSM is one of the Codecies that I don't have. My opinions are only what I've heard and what I've played against. Also looking for recommendations for cult armies.

Tyranids ('Nids):

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If you think of the movie Alien, or Starship Troopers, Tyranids aren't far off the mark.Pros: Tyranids are primarily seen as a close combat swarm army. The big Tyranids are extremely customisable and immensely powerful in whatever role you want to give them (but you should only choose one role at a time, remember), and, the smaller Tyranids come in massive numbers designed to make your opponent crap themselves on just how many bodies you can put on the table. The Tyranids also possess one of the most deadly close combat units in the entire game.
A Troops choice that can Infiltrate.
Most of the army is plastic. And, many of the metal models you only need a few of. So, per box, Tyranids are pretty cheap. Also, the Tyranid Battleforce is generally considered the 'best' one. Although, it's definitely recommended by most of the internet that you get two.

Cons: Like CSMs, it's often possible to overload your Monstrous Creatures with too many biomorphs (wargear), which gets expensive. Fast. And, many of the smaller Tyranids are designed for one unchangeable role. The smaller Tyranids can't adapt their units for what they want to do. A Tyranid army is usually seen as very shooty-heavy, or very assault-heavy. It very - extremely rarely - can be both. Often, trying to be both is actually a detriment to the Tyranid army.

Without the bigger Tyranids to back them up, the smaller Tyranids suddenly become a lot more vulnerable, partly because they already have low toughness and high armour saves to begin with. Therefore, you may need to spend a bit of money on the larger, more expensive models.
As a swarm army, box-per-box, you also don't get very many points in each box. This means you'll probably have to end up spending a lot of money to get a decent amount of points onto the table.

Also, like SMs and CSMs, if a 14 year old kid isn't playing SMs or CSMs, then they're playing Tyranids.

Reccomendation for Newbies: ** to ****. Depending on how much real-world currency you have to spend. If you don't have a lot of money, you wont be able to field a lot of bodies or acquire the larger Monstrous Creatures. If you can field ~50 Termagants and 50 Hormagaunts per battle and have Monstrous Creatures to back them up...Good.

Eldar:

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Elves. In SPAAACE!Pros: The Eldar boast a 'swiss army knife' army. They have a unit for everything and every unit can do their job well. Each and every unit looks vastly different to every other unit, and are actually supposed to be painted in different colours to each other. So, you have a huge variety of models and colours. If variety is important to you.
Most of the army can Fleet. All Eldar tanks are Fast, Skimmers, and the army contains Eldar Jetbikes (which have different rules to 'normal' Jetbikes). In short, the Eldar army boasts speed and maneuverability.
As with their Infantry, they also have HQ units to fit certain roles. An Autarch can be outfitted to suit almost any battlefield role. Eldar Farseers and Seer Councils are powerful psykers. And the Avatar is a close combat Monster (literally).
A lot of the metal models in the range come in reasonable sized boxes at a (fairly) reasonable price. The good news is, you usually don't need too many of the metal models.
Troops unit choice with the ability to Infiltrate and have Sniper Rifles.
A Wraithlord is one of the scariest models in the game. An absurdly high Toughness and a reasonable armour save. And can kill troops and heavy armour with equal ease. Often at the same time. It's strength 10 and Monstrous Creature status also means it can rip apart tanks even when it's guns are suited to killing Infantry. It even causes Instant Death on most Infantry that attack it. Including a lot of HQ characters.
Wraithguard are like smaller Wraithlords high Strength and Toughness, with a good save and toting around deadly guns.
...It's possible to build an entire army out of Wraithguard and Wraithlords.

Cons: Low 'Elf' Toughness.
The sheer amount of variety can sometimes make it hard to decide which units to take. Especially since some of the units in the Eldar army overlap, but, achieve their role in slightly different ways. And it's these 'slightly different ways' that can make or break the unit depending on your opponent. Some particular units are even useless or near-useless depending on your opponent.
Every unit fills a role. And is unadaptive. You can't manipulate any squad to do anything other than what it was designed to do (except Dire Avengers). And, in smaller point games where you can't afford to take every unit you want, you'll know that you're missing that unit. Because nothing else you have will be able to perform as well as the missing unit.
It's these missing units that make of most of the metal models that will be in your army. You'll need the metal models.
Individual Wraithguard units can often be prohibitively expensive in currency.
Taking too many Wraithlords in your army will have people crying for curdled dairy products. That is; Cheese. In lower point games, just one Wraithlord is enough for "OMG! Cheese!" cries.

Recommendation for Newbies: *** or ****. The Eldar army is an army where it's hard - but not impossible - to go wrong. With such a huge mandatory variety in models, an 'I want every unit' mindset (common in newbies) is actually beneficial to the Eldar army setup.

Dark Eldar (DE):

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Like Eldar, but evil (there's an argument that Dark Eldar are more evil than 'regular Chaos'). But vastly different.Pros: The Dark Eldar as just as fast and just as maneuverable - if not more - as their 'good' Eldar counterparts. Except pack a lot more firepower. Each and every unit is customisable (unlike Eldar) to attack different things. Splinter Cannons for killing Infantry and Dark Lances for popping tanks. And you can fit a lot of both in an army.
The Dark Eldar close combat portion of the army is nothing to be sneezed at either. The Dark Eldar Lord (home of the 2+ Invulnerable Save) and Incubi retinue is one of the single-deadliest close combat units in the game (the only one better this author can think of is Necron Pariahs). Wyches are also very good.
The Dark Eldar also posses Raiders. A Fast, Skimming, Open-Topped Transport vehicle. For some, this means putting a squad of Warriors in and flying them around the battlefield and shooting anything that moves thanks to being open-topped.
Because a Raider is also Fast, and Open-Topped, and some Dark Eldar Infantry are also Fleet, it means Dark Eldar are often capable of the 'First Turn Assault'. Given just how effective Dark Eldar assault units are, this can only end well.
Also being Open-Topped, it means that when (rarely if) the Raider is destroyed, it's occupants can bail out easier.
In the hands of someone who has played Dark Eldar a long time, the army is staggeringly effective.

Cons: Fragile. Fragile. Fragile. The Dark Eldar army is best described as 'shock and awe' (read the fluff ). The goal of the army is to butcher and hamstring the opponent as quickly and as brutally as possible. If it isn't blindingly obvious that the Dark Eldar are winning by Turn 3 or 4, then they probably wont win the battle at all. By turn 3 or 4, most of the Dark Eldar Raiders should be destroyed (if they're not, laugh), leaving the Dark Eldar to rely on their enormous Toughness of 3, or Jetbikes.
The Dark Eldar have huge reliance on their Raider transport vehicles. This will end up costing a fair bit of currency in the end as nearly every unit will need one for extra protection or speed.
A lot of (effective) Dark Eldar armies tend to look the same.
A lot of the models are old and/or 'not very pretty'. However, some people don't mind that they're 'not pretty', because they're Dark Eldar. They're not supposed to be attractive like 'good' Eldar.
Old Codex. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as the 3rd Ed. Dark Eldar Codex still stands up against recent 5th Ed. Codecies. It isn't bad...Just...Old. And it may or may not be missing out on some fun toys that the other races have been getting.

Recommendation for Newbies: ** or ***. The Dark Eldar are easy to learn, but hard to master. But, once mastered...The Dark Eldar tend to either win by a significant margin (often by Turn 3 or 4), or lose spectacularly (by Turn 5 or 6). If you don't like the models, you can always take regular Eldar, add spikes and make some really awesome conversions. But, doing this is hard.

Necrons:

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Think The Terminator, or perhaps think of Undead metal skeletons. And you can think of the Necrons.Pros: Some of the toughest basic Troops in the entire game.
Power Armour and Bolters. Except 'Necron Bolters' have a special version of Rending-but-not-quite, allowing them to wound Toughness 8 or better models or cause Glancing Hits to any vehicle. Including Land Raiders. Yes. The basic Troop type, with no options, can cause Glancing Hits against Land Raiders.
As well as their reasonable Toughness and 'Power Armour', they come with the We'll Be Back rule. Essentially your models can stand back up, even after they've been 'killed'. Like Undead. Or T-800s. Essentially, the Necrons are hard to kill. And sometimes don't even stay dead.
Warscythes - available to Necron Lords and Pariahs - are the best weapon in the entire game. Ignoring all saves - including Invulnerable Saves - and rolling 2D6 for Armour Penetration. Given that both Lords and Pariahs have Strength and Toughness 5, they can and will carve through almost anything put in front of them. Not even 'hard' units, that rely on 2+ armour and Invulnerable saves (like Space Marine Terminators) need to think twice about assaulting Pariahs.
The Necron army list is straightforward. You don't have to worry about whether to take Flamers or Plasmaguns. The unit is the unit. No fiddling necessary.
Most of the (useful) Necron model range is plastic. And also come at a high in-game points cost. For this reason, the Necrons are probably the cheapest army to buy when it comes to currency.
Necrons are extremely easy to paint.
The C'Tan. The Necrons are able to field near-literal Gods on the battlefield.
The Monolith. There's a legend that if you crack it open, it's full of cheese!Disclaimer: Cheesegear does not endorse breaking your Necron Monolith to find out if cheese is inside it.

Cons: First and foremost, the Phase Out rule. When an arbitrary proportion of your army is destroyed, the Necron army automatically loses. Regardless of the mission being played, the opponent has the same objective; 'Kill them all'.
Certain units are able to mitigate Phase Out from happening. One of the best ways to do this is to take a lot of the cheaper - and less fun - units in the army. For this reason, a lot of (effective) Necron armies tend to look pretty boring and are always pretty similar.
The only real individuality to be found in the entire Necron army list is to be found on the Necron Lord. No other unit truly allows options except for whether to take grenades or not.
The Assault capabilities of the Necron army is pretty effective, but, minimal. Either being expensive in points (like the aforementioned awesome Pariahs) and/or are not Troops. The Necron list also has a profound lack of Power Weapons, which doesn't help. The only power weapons found in the Necron list are Warscythes, which are only found on the expensive units; Lords and Pariahs (please note that Warscythes are awesome, however).
Pariahs may be totally awesome, and perhaps the best unit in the game, but, they don't come with the Necron rule. Meaning, every Pariah you get for your army, means that you're one step closer to Phasing Out earlier.
The basic Necron Troop comes at a high points cost, for this reason, Necrons do not often do well in games that are less than 1000 points.
(Unless the opponent doesn't entirely know what they're doing, and doesn't know how to defeat We'll Be Back or force a Phase Out).

Recommendation for Newbies: The Necrons are a very straightforward list. Very few options to get confused about, and extremely easy to paint. Necrons are very much like the Dark Eldar. It's very easy to make a bad list. It's also very easy to make a completely devastating list if you know what you're doing.
* if you can't get your head around Phase Out or want a list that offers variety.
**** or even ***** if you're looking for an easy army to put together and paint. And you can get your head around Phase Out, and know how to make it less bad.

Daemonhunters and Grey Knights (DHs, GKs): **

Witch Hunters and Sisters of Battle (WHs, SoBs): ***

Orks: *** to ***** depending on how much currency you have (horde army). Extra points because it's the more useful of the AoBR Starter Armies. So, a decent Ork army actually comes stock in the 'newbie box'.

Imperial Guard (IG): * to ***** depending on how much currency you have. A ***** IG army is the single-most expensive army in the entire game. Even more than Daemonhunters.

Chaos Daemons (Daemons, CDs): *

Still to come;
Chaos Daemons, Imperial Guard, Daemon and Witch Hunters and Orks.
All these armies I have lot of experience with. Send PMs if you believe you have advice that I might leave out.
And Tau (see below).

Actually looking for, or things I can't write myself;
More General Advice (I think I've covered most of it).
Exapansion on the CSMsI do not (currently) have the Tau Codex and have extremely limited experience against them. Someone should PM me a complete write-up.

SEND PMs. Don't Derail Thread.
Please submit suggestions for additions to the guide to my PM box as to keep from derailing the thread. Also, try and keep it general. Specifics can be delved into after the aspiring player has picked an army.

We now return you to your scheduled program of in the Grim Darkness of the Future.

Last edited by Cheesegear; 2010-01-20 at 09:06 PM.

Steam Name: Cheesegear
League of Legends Name: Cheesegear
You can fight like a krogan or run like a leopard but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard.

Hum. Has anyone ever considered making an adversary army? I'm working on my Ordo Hereticus list for my next game, and, the idea of possibly trying to make an adversary army workable for a future game is kind of tickling my fancy. It'd essentially be either a rogue psyker or apostate cardinal (or maybe both?) with what amounts to a swarm of mutants and then a couple squads of traitors (mounted in Rhinos).

The mutants would probably be upgraded to be Bloated/Winged/Horned (obviously not all at once) to give me a little more flexibility, and the traitors would serve a "heavy" support role (they've actually got guns! )

Has anyone tried this? It seems like it'd be fun (albeit probably a *horrible* idea...).

Hum. Has anyone ever considered making an adversary army? I'm working on my Ordo Hereticus list for my next game, and, the idea of possibly trying to make an adversary army workable for a future game is kind of tickling my fancy.

Has anyone tried this? It seems like it'd be fun (albeit probably a *horrible* idea...).

It is a horrible idea. Since it isn't exactly legal to play in any real game. And, all the models you'd be converting up become functionally useless if you try and use them for anything else. There is also something very similar in the back of Codex: Daemonhunters.

Both of these 'adversaries' lists were later expanded into The Lost and the Damned army list found in Codex: Eye of Terror. So, if you can track that book down (I hear the internet is good for those out-of-print ones...) you might have more fun with that list. Since the Adversaries lists don't have Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support. Adversaries, as is, are kind of gimped. Find Codex: Eye of Terror. Have much more fun.
Keep in mind that the EoT Codex is now also illegal.
EoT also gives a look into some fun conversions you can do. So, it might be worth it just to look at that.

You might also just want to crack open a regular Imperial Guard Codex and work from there. Primaris Psyker becomes a Lord Magus, Ministorum Priests become Cultists, and everyone is just 'Traitor Guard'. And then use the Allies rule to get access to Heretical Inquisitors and the like. If you use Daemonhunters Allies, you can gain access to Daemonhosts. Which would be a lot of fun in a proper Traitor Guard army.

Not many people follow through on Traitor Guard aside from 'oh, they're painted in dark colours = evil.'
At least 'Traitor Guard' done properly - as opposed to Adversaries - are tabletop legal.

Last edited by Cheesegear; 2009-12-06 at 05:30 AM.

Steam Name: Cheesegear
League of Legends Name: Cheesegear
You can fight like a krogan or run like a leopard but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard.

Also, Chaos Renegades. You know, if you want to fork out £50 or so pound just on their rules. Cool models though.

In case you're wondering, the rules referred to here, are the Chaos Renegade rules from Imperial Armour Vol. Six. Which are totally legal.
Which I cunningly left out because, hey, who uses ForgeWorld except for me?

Last edited by Cheesegear; 2009-12-06 at 05:42 AM.

Steam Name: Cheesegear
League of Legends Name: Cheesegear
You can fight like a krogan or run like a leopard but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard.

Both of these 'adversaries' lists were later expanded into The Lost and the Damned army list found in Codex: Eye of Terror. So, if you can track that book down (I hear the internet is good for those out-of-print ones...) you might have more fun with that list. Since the Adversaries lists don't have Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support. Adversaries, as is, are kind of gimped. Find Codex: Eye of Terror. Have much more fun.

Actually Eye of Terror came before Witchhunters. The Witchhunter adversary list adds the rogue psyker and the corrupt official, but is otherwise made up of slightly more expensive units from the Lost and the Damned. Lost and the Damned also have no real relation to the Daemonhunters adversary list.

I used to play a Lost and the Damned horde, which grew out of my very early Alpha Legion army. I've got a few squads of renegade guardsmen and about 80 beastmen gathering dust at the bottom of my army box. Thus far it's been my only experience playing a horde army and it was a lot of fun. I was sad when they didn't even give me a cultist option in the Chaos Codex, and their last use was in an apocalypse game.

Actually Eye of Terror came before Witchhunters. The Witchhunter adversary list adds the rogue psyker and the corrupt official, but is otherwise made up of slightly more expensive units from the Lost and the Damned. Lost and the Damned also have no real relation to the Daemonhunters adversary list.

...I see your schwartz is bigger than mine. Everything here is true.

The difference between EoT and WH, is that Mutants cost two points less in EoT. That's about the only difference I can readily see.
EoT has an Arch-Heretic which could be fun to use. As opposed to a Cardinal. It should also be noted that Witch Hunters are vastly superior to their adversaries (as it should be? )

Wheras in EoT, the LatD can at least take allies to even the playing field.

I still think the best way to represent cultist in current rules would be to use Imperial Guard with Radical/Heretic Inquisitorial units. Along with lots of cool conversions, of course. Or, if you can, spend a lot of money for Imperial Armour Vol. Six and go from there.

Last edited by Cheesegear; 2009-12-06 at 09:00 AM.

Steam Name: Cheesegear
League of Legends Name: Cheesegear
You can fight like a krogan or run like a leopard but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard.

What is the most effective use for a Chaos Terminator Lord (with Daemon Weapon, no mark)?

I got one way back when I wasn't even entirely clear on the rules yet, because it seemed effective and I loved the model - well, I still love the model, and would like to use it, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do that best. Not being able to use a Rhino makes it more difficult to get him to the front quickly, using a Land Raider (aside from the difficulties of me not having one, nor the points to spare for one) as transport seems an ineffective way of using the Land Raider, and Deep Striking, while not dangerous with enough icons around, bears the risk of the Lord not being in use for quite a while, not to mention that it necessitates an entire team of Terminators to protect the Lord from being shot to death as soon as he teleports in, something that I could get in high point games, but find myself hard-pressed to free the points for in low point games.

Currently I'm thinking I probably should just put him into a team of Plague Marines and have them run on each shooting phase to get into combat quickly - it might give the opponent an additional incentive to shoot the Plague Marines, which would draw fire away from more vulnerable troops and would definitely be good for me...

LGBTitPSupporterIn a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die - Ever drifting down the stream - Lingering in the golden gleam - Life, what is it, but a dream?- Lewis Carroll

The difference between EoT and WH, is that Mutants cost two points less in EoT. That's about the only difference I can readily see.
EoT has an Arch-Heretic which could be fun to use. As opposed to a Cardinal. It should also be noted that Witch Hunters are vastly superior to their adversaries (as it should be? )

Wheras in EoT, the LatD can at least take allies to even the playing field.

I still think the best way to represent cultist in current rules would be to use Imperial Guard with Radical/Heretic Inquisitorial units. Along with lots of cool conversions, of course. Or, if you can, spend a lot of money for Imperial Armour Vol. Six and go from there.

IIRC, the EoT Lost and Damned at least made a pass at creating an army with an actual ForceOrg chart. Big Mutants were changed from Sergeants to a Heavy Support choice. They might also have had some elite choices.

Also, a Traitor Guard is actually pretty viable if you take a Heretical Inquisitor. One of the biggest faults in the entire Daemonhunters codex is because despite how awesome they are, Daemonhosts cannot be taken with Grey Knights. And that takes out about half of the actual entries in the codex. Daemonhosts are RIDICULOUS for their points, and 300 points for a rogue inquisitor with 3 Daemonhosts is pretty awesome for a horde or even tank-based Guard army.

IIRC, the EoT Lost and Damned at least made a pass at creating an army with an actual ForceOrg chart. Big Mutants were changed from Sergeants to a Heavy Support choice. They might also have had some elite choices.

It was a full army list. Choices at every level, big mutants were elites. Lots of Chaos and Imperial Guard units as well as the cultists and mutants and spawn.

Elites would actually get used up incredibly easily. Lots of units that were troops in the Chaos list counted as elite in the lost and the damned force.

We'd be happy to.
Just be sure to mention what you're trying to get out of each army when you post them, though - if you don't tell us that you want advice on Wargear choices, for example, chances are that we will instead ignore that and bore your socks off with a tediously in-depth commentary of your Unit Sizes and what SpecialCharacter you should/n't take...

Excellent, thank you. They're essentially the same army, just an initial 1000 point list (Christmas is a nice time of year) and the envisaged 1500 points (Birthdays are also good ) My apologies for the text wall, it's... big.

Ok, well, some of you may remember that I posted in here asking for advice on starting up a sisters army a while back. I'd played before, years and years ago and had a Blood Angels force. I've since been thinking, very heavily, about redoing the Blood Angels again instead of the sisters, enough to stymie going out waving fistfuls of pound notes anyway. I've been lurking in here and vaguely remember someone mentioning the Codex being free so I went and found it and had a play.

I'd appreciate someone having a look at this please because it's been ages since I've done this by myself, I've knocked up a 1000 point force (I know that it'll be expensive to buy but never mind, I'd rather have an army that fits) with what I hope to expand it into with another 500 points. Sorry, it gets quite long at the end as I've explained my thinking a bit. I was hoping that someone’d take a look, see if I’ve make anything hideously illegal / horrificly bad / I have no idea how to use it at all / it could be so much better if... / have you considered having a... I don’t think anyone’ll be after me waving a cheese knife to get a chunk of the premium stilton but you never know. The idea is that this is not a static force by any stretch of the imagination. It'll take some making sure that I don't get parts of it destroyed in detail if they get separated but I'm hopeful I'll be packing enough firepower to avoid that.

I know I'll need to be really careful not to get split up and destroyed piecemeal. Still, the overcharged engines on Blood Angel's Rhino should help the slowpoke tac squad. The plasma gun is in there because I always had a soft spot for them. I've given everything that I can jump packs for maximum mobility and fluffiness' sake (cannot for the life of me remember what their special rules are, they were really, really new last time, obviously am going to need a current rulebook if I do this). I know there's a chance they could bite back on me, but I figured that being able to pick and choose where I land, kill stuff and then jump away will be worth it.

1500 points,

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Command

Captain – 135
Jump Pack –
Power weapon –

Chaplain – 120
Jump Pack -

Or Chaplain Lemartes – 125 points, lose one plasma gun from a tac squad and replace with meltagun to compensate for extra 5 points

or, if Wolfie’s interpretation of the Death Company rules is correct (see final paragraph) Terminator Chaplain – 125 points (substitute melta for plasma as above)

I added a second tac squad because I felt the first list was a little lacking in shootiness and the Dreadnought is an addition to the melee options. The chaplain is there to keep the Dreadnought under control. The dreadnought is there either as a defensive line filler or a reserve tide swinger in a melee (ie as it'll be slower than the jump infantry, the fight will have had a chance to start to go one way or another and the arrival of a 2 powerfisted, extra d3 close combat attacks, armoured tank killing monster that even if it doesn't survive to reach the fight will have attracted an awful lot of firepower...), will hopefully turn a losing fight my way / make a winning fight even more winning.

Chaplain Issues

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I've got 3 chaplain options in there. This has caused me a fair bit of grief. One uses a special character (Lemartes). For a mere 5 points more than a normal jump packed chaplain, old Lemartes seems to be well worth it for the reduction in enemy leadership in close, extra wound and extra leadership. I may end up using the assault squad in combat squads - as he'll be too easy to kill without a squad to thin any enemy fire coming at him and have the captain join the other – I’d be interested to hear if that’s in the rules or not. If not, maybe keep the Captain back in cover, hiding behind the Predator, with the shooters as a jumping reserve in case I get flanked and send the Chaplain in with the marines… it's not ideal, but it's the best I can do to allow the Chaplain to be really used to his strengths. Anyway, next thing after that would be another assault squad for the captain so he could be used as intended (the fact the Chaplain makes squads fearless is too good to miss out on and he’d need to be where the dreadnought is anyway).

Death Company confusion

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Another thing is the Death Company. Am I reading this right ? As I understand, I have 3 units in my 1500 point list that count towards this, meaning that I can take a 3 Death Company model unit at no points or elite squad slots cost and pay 30 points per model if I want any more ? Or is it I can take the 3 at 30 points each ? If it’s the first, cool, they can keep pace with the Dready and support it, I can lose the jump capability from the chaplain, keep the tac squad melta gun as a permanent feature, make him a Terminator chaplain and keep the dreadnought and troops all together as an extremely unpleasant little unit. If not, oh well, back to the original plan.

Last edited by Timberwolf; 2009-12-07 at 12:57 PM.

"What's in this empty box ?"
"Youth and talent is no match for age and treachery."
Mechwarrior by Elder Tsofu

I unfortunately can't help you since I don't have the Blood Angels Codex and I'm not a good player anyway.

I was wondering, is an unit of Sternguard with two heavy flamers and using Dragonfire bolts a good idea in Cities of Death and Planetstrike since they all cancel cover saves? Or are they still too expensive to take?

Pro - very nice models (helmets, especially), as I don't like standard SM too much. Cons: metal, expensive, and I don't like rest of the Deamonhunter models. Can they be combined with Sister of Battle/Stormtroopers for more bodies? How about GW Tanks? Only two models?

These "Gothic"/"Egyptian" models are... lovely. Hovewer, most of the other models are... butt-ugly, to say the least

Can CSM army be build without any mutated*/Nurgle/unarmored**/ugly/deformed units? If possible, without spikes, skulls, and these other ridiculous decorations, or will an attempt end with banishment for heresy?

* Evan these larger tusks on CSM Termies are a bit too much
** Say, Kharn - nice, if not for that hand

Very nice wolfy models. Cons: a bit expensive, players getting this are ridiculed for some strange reason, plus I dislike all these Viking models/heads. And, besides these helmets/skins, they are pretty much plain SMs.

Tau? Nice, but no Kroot/Vespids, many crisis suits* and Gue'vesa, if anything.

*seems to be a bit expensive, in both $$/points, for something that is essentially one space marine.

Necrons? They look... I don't know... More like mummies, than like robots. Certainly nice, but seem boring, and most of their "special" units is ridiculous

IG? Nice, but I don't think I'd like fountains of bodies, and little "good" units. Armored column/stormtroopers, maybe. Points against GK/Eldar look apply tenfold here (psykers/missionaries/commissars) - you can find good looking examples of them, though. Still, the models I liked the most (Krieg) are not in the catalog for some reason.

Out of curiosity - how far "counts as" counts? I understand you can use it in informal game, but what about a shop game? Tourney? Championship? What if I were to take some cheap models and use them as something more expensive (say, SMs as GKs, Stormtroopers as SMs, IG as Tau, etc.) - will I get kicked?

Some early codices suggest hand-building of vehicles - is that even legal? Not that I have time/skill to make even simple tank, but it seems to me (logically) that anyone trying to use handmade (not converted, as in this case GW still has profit) units will be shown the door?

So for your 1000 point army, you would be entitled to a 2-man Death Company unit. Which is still respectable, if you give them Jump-packs and have your chaplain leading them. They can put a serious hurt on any light vehicles they catch. 8 WS4 S4 Rending attacks on the charge for 10 points? Yes please!

In addition, you could pay 30 points a model to add more Death Company marines to the unit. I do not believe there is any LIMIT to the size of a Death Company unit, as it's not actually stated.

EDIT: As to the above post;

If you're thinking about getting into Wh40k, don't take Grey Knights. They don't win many games even if you're experienced, and their outdated codex can make them difficult to use. They are very shiny though.

Non-mutatey Chaos? HERESY! I suppose you COULD do an entire Thousand Sons (The Egyptiany guys you saw) army, if you're willing to convert a bunch of regular marines, Terminators, and Obliterators, since you need several of these of a Thousand Sons Tzeentch army (Seriously, you NEED Terminators and Obliterators if you're doing Tzeentch stuff. That 4+ invul save is delicious).

Space Wolves are decent, though as Cheesegear said, Vanilla Marines are better for newbies.

Black Templars are kind of... lame. Sure, they're fancy and have cool fluff and a few interesting rules, but they're just NOT AS GOOD as Vanilla Marines.

Every painting article on that site requires at least that many paints, but they're written by 'eavy metal painters who get their paints as expenses/free. I usually make do with one-two of every primary colour and white and black. You can't make every colour by mixing and it can be a pain to mix the same shade twice but it is a lot cheaper.

You also don't have to use the official paints, other brands are often cheaper. Never buy the official paint brushes.

The colour scheme I've planned for my tyranid army means I can do the lot with only 5 paints (white, bone, purple, red and blue)

Well no. Space Wolf terminators have no power fist and to buy one negates their point cost advantage. To not buy one would require finding a whole lot of terminator power weapons from somewhere which can wind up costing you a lot of money.

Well, yeah. Though if you are going with power weapons, its probably worth it to go with wolf-claws, which are included in the box. For straight-up power weapons, there is always the warstore (which could admitingly run you around $30 for 10 weapons)

Friday's game was cancelled. The reason? Snow. Snow in Mississippi. That's like... crazy. So me and my Space Marine friend ended up stuck away from my house where we'd left our armies, and by the time we got home, we were too tired to play. And my brother and his friend, who originally helped me buy the Imp Guard and claims partial ownership of them, were both home as well. But they were almost asleep when we got home. So yeah, WH 40K game was a complete bust.

So you say my friend shouldn't get the Dark Angels Codex, since he plans to be more troopy than vehicular? Is there a Dark Angels section in the regular Space Marine Codex?

Yes, yes... I know I need the Codex. Before anyone says anything else, I'm getting it in a few weeks. I know, I know, I fail at life...

This... War Store ya'll keep refering to. Can you buy Chaos Marine backpacks on it? For a decent price at least? GW sells 'em, but its 6+ bucks for 5 backpacks. That seems... a bit overpriced. I need 'em for when my bro gets the AoBR kit, so he can make the converted Marines look more Chaos-y. But if its gonna cost me that much for 5, I may be better off just leaving most of them plain and green stuffing a few of them...

Originally Posted by SilverClawShift

Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"

They do have a lot of good deals, though... I can get some nice weapons like Plasma pistols and Ork Combi-Weapons and parts like Chaos Terminator Heads for some really good prices. Heck, I could just collect loose change for a few weeks, and I'd be able to order some nifty stuff.

Originally Posted by SilverClawShift

Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"